Mesocosm (Northumberland UK) is an animated portrait of a landscape representing one year of real time on the Northumberland moors. In a 146-hour cycle, one hour of time elapses each minute: seasons unfold, days pass, animals appear, and the omnipresent male figure provides food and nourishment. The work has no beginning or end, its behaviour changes over time in response to software-driven data inputs, influenced by the simulated ecosystems of environmental science.

BiographyMarina Zurkow is an artist based in Brooklyn, New York, she makes media works that explore humans' relationships to animals, plants and the weather. These reconfigured and inclusive notions of our environment have taken the form of animated videos, customised multi-screen computer pieces, installations, prints, and participatory public art works. Since 2000, Zurkow has exhibited at: Sundance Film Festival; International Film Festival Rotterdam; Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC; Seoul Media City Biennial; Ars Electronica, Linz; Creative Time, New York; The Kitchen, New York; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Eyebeam, New York. She is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow, and has previously been a Rockefeller New Media Fellow.